an' fer ourselves. If ye don't fight
ye'll git nothin' but taxes to pay the cost o' lickin' ye. It'll cost
a hundred times more to be licked than it'll cost to win. Ye won't
find any o' the ol' boys o' Washington squealin' erbout pay. We're
lookin' fer brothers an' not pigs. Git down on yer knees with me,
every one o' ye, while the Chaplain asks God A'mighty to take us all
into His army."

The words of Solomon put the new men in better spirit and there was
little complaining after that. They called that speech "The Binkussing
of the Recruits." Solomon was the soul of the old guard.

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN WHICH ARNOLD AND HENRY THORNHILL ARRIVE IN THE HIGHLANDS

Margaret and her mother returned to England with David Hartley soon
after Colonel Irons had left France. The British Commissioner had not
been able to move the philosopher. Later, from London, he had sent a
letter to Franklin seeking to induce America to desert her new ally.
Franklin had answered:

"I would think the destruction of our whole country and the extirpation
of our people preferable to the infamy of abandoning our allies. We
may lose all but we shall act in good faith."

Here again was a new note in the history of diplomatic intercourse.

Colonel Irons' letter to Margaret Hare, with the greater part of which
the reader is familiar, was forwarded by Franklin to his friend
Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, and by him delivered. Another
letter, no less vital to the full completion of the task of these pages
was found in the faded packet. It is from General Sir Benjamin Hare to
his wife in London and is dated at New York, January 10, 1780. This is
a part of the letter:

"I have a small house near the barracks with our friend Colonel Ware
and the best of negro slaves and every comfort. It is now a loyal
city, secure from attack, and, but for the soldiers, one might think it
a provincial English town. This war may last for years and as the sea
is, for a time, quite safe, I have resolved to ask you and Margaret to
take passage on one of the first troop ships sailing for New York,
after this reaches you. Our friend Sir Roger and his regiments will be
sailing in March as I am apprised by a recent letter. I am, by this
post, requesting him to offer you suitable accommodations and to give
you all possible assistance. The war would be over now if Washington
would only fight. His caution is maddening. His army is in a
desperat